There's a wind turbine right next to my childhood home. I grew up thinking it was probably the most beautiful thing in the neighborhood. It was truly stunning to younger me.
My impression is that the construction of wind turbines is opposed only in the sorts of place where no one would even consider strip mining - e.g. places where wealthy people live. Aesthetic sensibility is a luxury.
Edit: I'm not saying this to imply that people are wrong to develop aesthetic sensibility once they can afford to. I'm not so wealthy that I can afford to do anything about, say, a building being built that ruins my view, but as a member of the middle class I can participate in collective opposition to something like a nearby strip mine, whereas I wouldn't if I were so poor that I would welcome working as a miner.
The picture above is likely Garzweiler or Hambach in Germany. Schleswig-Holstein and Niedersachsen, two states in Northern Germany have a lot of excess wind energy both off- and on-shore, but Bayern and to a degree other states in the wealthy and industrial south kind of boycotted any energy transition by saying that power lines must be mostly underground and wind turbines must have 10x their height as a distance to residential buildings, thus effectively limiting both height and wind power expansion.
That mine makes some guy hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
The wind turbine cuts into the profits of the guy who sells fossil fuels (and is likely to be the same guy).
That's why theres a weird media push to discredit and downplay wind power
My dude. My old manager at GoodWill makes hundreds of thousands per year outsourcing labor to a bunch of unfortunate folk. This strip mine makes millions. Tens of millions probably.
Yeah isn't it weird how somehow the "landscape" they're so worried about messing up with wind turbines or solar panels... Is never impacted by things like this?
Literally have never heard a conservative complain about strip mining even though it's insanely ugly and the closest we can come to actually raping the planet.
Also when the companies inevitably pull out of the area and leave a ghost town some entrepreneur can come along and make a theme park. Win-win-win in my book. /s
I feel the need to clarify that these types of projects usually don't bring "generational jobs and careers" but usually bring outside workforce who will leave when damage done.
I lived in an area that was going to start strip mining for sand that was the right consistency for fracking. Plenty of conservatives were amongst the loudest opponents. There's plenty of hypocracy, no need to exaggerate. Their reasons were not wanting to have so much heavy equipment on the roads and fear of silicosis, not opposing natural gas extraction.
There’s plenty of hypocracy, no need to exaggerate
Okay, I wasn't exaggerating. The existence of one counter example doesn't mean I was. For examples about what I mean: see almost every coal mining town ever. It's like a cult. The conservatives almost unanimously are in favor of coal no matter what it does to their environment or how badly the mining companies disregard safety and basic human dignity. I have never heard a conservative oppose or complain about strip mining, literally never. But if alternative energy ever comes up, they're all suddenly very concerned with natural beauty. This doesn't mean conservatives never once had an issue with strip mining, it just means that it's extremely rare in comparison to their comments like this: "omg wind turbines are UGLY and kill ALL the BIRDS"
I share the viewpoint of the meme, but here is the answer: to see one of these big holes, I have to drive there to see it. To see a wind turbine, I just need to look out of the window. Wind turbines are scattered everywhere. Coal mining pits are localised. They are massive, yes, but who cares when you don't live nearby, lived in a village torn down for mining or driving through it?
Well,... Yes. It's not visible, so it doesn't bother as many people. As long as sweatshops are situated in Thailand and not in European cities, it's easy to buy a cheap pair of jeans and not think about where it came from. Same with a coal pit "somewhere else where I am not".
